Learn practical strategies to handle emerging trends and leadership challenges in private schools.
No matter if you’re a School Head, Admission Director, Development Director, Board member, or any other private school administrator—Ideas & Perspectives, ISM’s premier private school publication, has strategic solutions for the pervasive problems you face.
- Tuition not keeping pace with your expenses? In I&P, explore how to use strategic financial planning to create your budget and appropriately adjust your tuition.
- Enrollment dropping off? Discover how to implement the right admission and enrollment management strategies that engage your community—and fill your classrooms.
- Trouble retaining teachers? Learn how you can best support your teachers using ISM’s Comprehensive Faculty Development framework. Your faculty members will become more enthusiastic about their roles—which ultimately improves student outcomes.
- Fundraising campaigns not as successful as you’d hoped? Implement ISM’s practical advice and guidance to build a thriving annual fund, construct an effective capital campaign, and secure major donors—no matter your community size or location.
- Not sure how to provide professional development—for you and your staff? Learn ways to develop and fund a successful professional development strategy. You can improve teacher-centered satisfaction and growth, which in turn strengthens student-centered learning.
- Problematic schedule? You can master the challenges of scheduling with the help of ISM’s practical advice, based on our experience with hundreds of schools and our time-tested theories.
- And so much more.
I&P has shared targeted research, up-to-date insight, and sound theory with school leaders since 1975. More than 8,500 private school decision-makers find the answers to their schools’ administrative and governance matters in our advisory letter. We give you the strategic answers you need.
As an ISM Silver or Gold member, you not only receive issues online and in print 10 times a year, but you have access to more than 600 articles in our web archive. Need help? It’s at your fingertips! Learn more and sign up for ISM's membership here.
Search
See the articles from our latest issue of Ideas & Perspectives.
The Three Types of Need-Based Financial Aid
Volume 36 No. 4 // March 15, 2011
Need-based financial aid involves understanding a family's ability to pay the tuition your school charges, and then negotiating (whether formally or informally) a discount strategy to meet as much of the need as possible. It is important to note, however, that understanding need is a complex process. While we would all like a simple formula for assessing need, no two families' needs are exactly alike. With this in mind, ISM offers the following distinctions to understand the differing uses of need-based financial aid.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
ISM Success Predictor No. 4: Highly Specific Course/ Professional Development Faculty Contracts
Volume 36 No. 4 // March 15, 2011
In an earlier issue of Ideas & Perspectives, we offered ISM's 20 Success Predictors for the 21st Century. As that article explained, ISM expects successful 21st Century Schools to make radical changes in both structure and function to achieve and sustain stability and excellence. We emphasized that the 20 Success Predictors were designed as speculative forecasts of what ISM expects to be needed to achieve long-term stability and excellence in the coming years. Readers were reminded that the current (third) iteration of the ISM Stability Markers®--the primary lens through which ISM views private-independent schools--does not lose its general utility as an evidence-driven set of benchmarks for long-term stability and programmatic excellence. Thus, ISM maintains its focus on the Stability Markers, but offers a future-focused set of Success Predictors as accompanying guidelines. (Note: There is some overlap between the two lists. Several of the ISM Stability Markers are also Success Predictors for the 21st Century.) This article focuses on ISM Success Predictor No. 4: Teachers will be hired and rehired based upon highly specific course/professional development contracts.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
ISM Success Predictor No. 17: Budgeting for Professional Development
Volume 36 No. 3 // February 17, 2011
In an earlier issue of Ideas & Perspectives, we offered “ISM’s 20 Success Predictors for the 21st Century.” As that article explained, ISM expects successful 21st Century Schools to make radical changes in both structure and function to achieve and sustain stability and excellence. We emphasized that the 20 Success Predictors were designed as speculative forecasts of what ISM expects to be needed to achieve long-term stability and excellence in upcoming years. Readers were also reminded that the current (third) iteration of the ISM Stability Markers®—the primary lens through which ISM views private-independent schools—does not lose its general utility as an evidence-driven set of benchmarks for long-term stability and programmatic excellence. Thus, ISM maintains its focus on the Stability Markers, but offers a future-focused set of Success Predictors as accompanying guidelines. (Note: There is some overlap between the two lists. Several of the ISM Stability Markers are also Success Predictors for the 21st century.) This article focuses on ISM Success Predictor No. 17: 3% of the overall budget allocated to professional development.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Your Strategic Financial Plan: Expenditure Control for the Long Run
Volume 36 No. 3 // February 17, 2011
ISM's recommended 13-line, six-year format for your strategic financial plan serves as a ready reminder to you, the School Head, that today’s expenditure excesses have long-term consequences. In the two tables shown below, only Line 5 (cash operating expenses) and Line 9 (the annual cash surplus/deficit or profit/loss) are shown, for ease of explanation.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Addressing Bullying and Sexual Misconduct
Volume 36 No. 3 // February 17, 2011
As the competition between private and public schools intensifies each year, it is not always the luxuries or differentiators associated with attending a private school that become more critical. Rather, the basic but vital The ISM 37-School Parent Survey: Why Families Can Afford Your Schools Tuition is of immense concern to private school parents and students. While clearly one of the most difficult and unpleasant topics to attempt to get one's head around, there are no more important issues for you to address than potential misconduct and bullying toward your students. At issue here is not only concern for the student's physical and emotional safety, but the reality that students simply cannot learn effectively when they do not feel safe.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Understanding Faculty Culture Differences Across School Divisions
Volume 36 No. 2 // January 28, 2011
While ISM has long written about faculty culture, and there has been the sense of a monolithic culture, the reality is that each division in our schools seems to have a particular character. Of course, if your school only has one division, then unity is a much simpler concept to understand.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
ISM’s 20 Success Predictors for the 21st Century
Volume 36 No. 2 // January 28, 2011
ISM has for 15 years published—at five-year intervals—its list of the prime correlates necessary to sustain mission-specific excellence. This periodically revised, evidence-based list, known as the ISM Stability Markers®, has been in widespread use as both a lens through which to self-evaluate and as a means by which to strengthen a school’s longest-term financial and organizational stability and excellence.
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Mid-Year Financial Reports and Your Strategic Financial Plan
Volume 36 No. 1 // December 30, 2010
ISM has long recommended six-year strategic plans that are enacted every four years. The financial expression of that plan, ISM has suggested, should be shown on a single sheet: 13 lines and six columns. ISM calls this single-sheet display the strategic financial plan (SFP).
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
Advanced Placement: A Critical Study
Volume 36 No. 1 // December 30, 2010
Harvard Education Press has brought out a new book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program,1 which is an interesting collection of essays from a variety of viewpoints, and the findings demonstrate the controversies in this area. Although it is not ISM’s primary interest, social equity is a prominent element of the book. While ISM is sensitive to social issues, we are more directly concerned with the appropriateness of Advanced Placement for private-independent schools. We have consistently opposed its use. How does this new book advance the conversation?
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.
The 21st Century School: Facilities
Volume 36 No. 1 // December 30, 2010
If you, as School Head or Board President, are thinking of or are in the process of planning new or renovated facilities, ISM recommends that you ask this simple question: What do we know about the uses and need for this building in five to 10 years? The honest answer given the dramatic changes in the delivery of education that we and many others have been commenting on is that we are not at all sure. However, there are strong hints and emerging practices in school architecture that provide us with a little confidence in thinking about our next projects.1
1. Already a member? Click here to login.
2. Not a member? Click here to become a member.
3. Not sure? We'll help you figure it out.